How To Get A Business Plan Score
The Enloop Business Plan creator software includes a real-time Business Plan Scoring System that helps you understand how successful your business might be.
You can dramatically improve the odds of success for your business by improving your business plan's score. A higher score indicates better odds of success.
How The Business Plan Score Works
At the top of each page in the Enloop business plan writing app, you’ll see a real-time score for the business plan you’re working on. This is the Enloop Performance Score™, or EPS.
The business plan scoring system is based on a scale of 0 to 1,000. A score of 350 or higher is considered ‘passing’ in the Enloop system. The higher your score, the better your odds of success.
Developing your business plan in the Enloop environment provides you with a unique opportunity to test many scenarios for your venture, using the scoring system as a way to refine your business model. No other business planning software offers this type of feature.
A Business Plan Writing App with a Predictive Algorithm
The score is a predictive algorithm that helps forecast the likelihood of success for your venture.
As you move through the app, you’re provided with constant feedback in the form of the always-visible score that updates in real-time as you interact with the system. Detailed information on each topic is always provided. As you write your business plan, you have the luxury of learning about each topic and applying that knowledge to your plan. This helps you strengthen your business model as you go and reinforces what you’ve learned.
How Can the Business Plan Score Help You?
Use the score as feedback to examine whether your venture is likely to be a sustainable business. Remember that the score is a prediction based on the data you’ve provided. It’s not a crystal ball. Rather, the score is a useful tool that can help you make better decisions.
What Variables are Included in the Algorithm?
The proprietary algorithm is derived from twenty-one quantitative variables that are important indicators of strengths and weakness for any business. The score uses no qualitative data—just the facts — that you’ve specified during the data gathering process of building your business plan in the app. Each company's financial metrics are compared to their industry's averages, based on the NAICS code you select when you setup your business plan.
Why New Companies have Lower Scores
Statistically, new companies have shorter lifespans than existing companie for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is they likely were poorly planned and often just run out of cash. They’re not sustainable businesses.
For this reason, it’s difficult to score high as a new company. Without evidence (such as a history of sales to prove the concept), new companies are just riskier.
We created Enloop and the EPS scoring system to help you make better decisions in planning your business. Many new business owners over-estimate their financial projections, based on their zeal and passion. While passion is absolutely necessary (and part of the thrill of launching and running a business), an unbiased score can help bring projections back to reality by tempering emotions and allowing clear-headed business planning decisions.
For new businesses, projections that are above industry averages are penalized. Without a history of sales to prove a revenue model, new business owners can dangerously over-project sales. You need evidence to prove that your business will actually perform at a level higher than your industry's averages. A track record of actual sales will give you a better idea of your actual performance potential. You have to earn a high score.
Safeguards Against ‘gaming’ the Algorithm
The algorithm is designed with safeguards that prevent users from attempting to unrealistically inflate a score. Without evidence of success (actual net profits), overly optimistic and unreliable projections only harm your business. Additionally, lenders and investors will perform their own due diligence in analyzing your projections.
Ultimately, the score is as reliable as the data you input. Attempting to game the algorithm only causes harm to the business owners it’s designed to protect.